open Lapo All · Collections · Tags · Authors · Random · Add
Details

Edit on Github

Tags: music pop

License: CC BY-SA-NC 4.0

Sources: janusawi.bandcamp.com

carry (feat.) jan kekan san

jan Usawi, jan Kekan San
Aug 5, 2023

carry jan my kekan san
there’ll be pi’s when you are lon
wuwojiti kijete-
santakalu mu

mi kama sewi weka pakala nasa
kon len la mi kama wile e sona
mi li soaring ever higher
(that’s not how li works)
taso flew too high

mi ken lukin taso still was a blind man
Though my mind could think la mi awen nasa
(ok so like knowing the context of the original English line, that’s kind of a deprecated usage of nasa)
I hear the voices when I’m teaching
I can hear them say

carry jan my kekan san
there’ll be pi’s when you are lon
wuwojiti kijete-
santakalu mu

Masquerading as a star with a bow tie
In VR chat getting ready to go live
En if I show up with my dumb gag
(wait was that English and or Toki Pona en ‘cause that’s also not how en works)
Well, it surely means I didn’t read
(also that sounds mean out of context)

lon telo wawa seme li tawa pilin
(did— was that seme used as a relativizer)
Tossed about here is the way that I’m feeling
(that’s not wrong, but that’s just a cheap rhyme)
I set a course for winds pi fortune
(ok you’re doing this on purpose)
But I hear the voices say
(this… this is gonna take a while)

carry jan my kekan san
there’ll be pi’s when you are lon
wuwojiti kijete-
santakalu mu

(Okay, do we really need to go into this? pi doesn’t mean of. It doesn’t! You can’t put just one word behind it. pi introduces a head word, then you modify that head word, and then that whole thing goes on to modify the head of the current part of speech. And it can’t cross parts of speech either, you can’t put e inside of pi! But listen, if you didn’t modify the head of a pi phrase, so you said like ijo pi ijo, it would literally be the same as if you didn’t use pi, except that would be correct, as in ijo ijo! And okay, this misconception comes from two places: Toki Pona: The Language of Good, where the definition of pi is listed as “of”, and the whole point there is to be a teaching tool, it gets the idea across pretty well without being too wrong. But the other place is that particularly skilled speakers will intentionally use pi incorrectly, as in with just one word, for laughs. So yeah, I understand the confusion. People reference ilo pi nanpa all the time, and newbies hear that among other things and go “Oh okay, pi with one word! Got it.” But grammatically pi doesn’t mean of—or else you kinda say that every modifier works like of? And sure, you can do that. But like, okay, that’s just silly.)

sina jo e sitelen tenpo
(Maybe don’t use jo there? jo is commonly used for things that you hold or own, or things that are a part of you, not as broad as English “have”)
sina o kama suli tan selo
ma sewi li wile e sina
ona li o awen
(Ahhh okay, we’re being self aware about it)

carry jan my kekan san
there’ll be pi’s when you are lon
wuwojiti kijete-
santakalu mu

o mu! \